Give me a competent arguement that WotC is "changing rules for the sake of change"

[pawsplay]

I guess it can't ever be because the rules need changing. They have learned a great deal in the last seven years, and people are always thinking of new and better ways of doing things.

And they do need changing.

The thing is... there is a verson of 4e that reflects those changes, that draws from what previous D&D editions are... that will not come to be.

As much as 3e changed D&D, you could still see where it came from. "Wizards carry around wands, staves, and orbs to cast spells of various types" is not something that has been reflected in previous editions.

 

[Gentlegamer]

And to address the topic of the OP: It seems to me that pretty much every change that has been described has been for a real reason stemming from experience with the 3e rules.

 

[pawsplay]

And to address the topic of the OP: It seems to me that pretty much every change that has been described has been for a real reason stemming from experience with the 3e rules.

"Gnomes are filthy!"
"You know what this game needs?... more orbs!"
"Vast empires are boring."

 

[Rechan]

Gnomes are being eliminated as having no specific role. And... tieflings... are being added.... to fulfill some kind of unmet role? What archetype are tieflings supposed to be?

Tieflings fill the "Guy with a dark past" role. There are lots of literary, both old school and contemporary, of "Something made/born of evil fighting its heritage". This can be dismissed as the "Emo kids playing Drizzt" but there's precedence for it. Heck, the 3.5 books are full of "Heritage" feats, from Fey to Draconic to Planar, even Illithid.

Also there's just that Tiefs are really popular while Gnomes are less so. One of the design philosophies for 4e is "Look at how people actually play the game and make the edition to facilitate how most people play it." So I suspect you'll see a lot of popular house rules get added to the edition.

 

[Imaro]

"Gnomes are filthy!"
"You know what this game needs?... more orbs!"
"Vast empires are boring."

Lol...

Learned "elves" steeped in magical lore and cultured arts suck, but if we call them Eladrin...now they're Awesome.

 

[Rechan]

I think the tenor of your response kinda proves me right.

The "It's change for change's sake" argument hasn't been backed up with a lot of legitimate backup yet. If it can't be, then how isn't it a talking point?

 

[Crazy Jerome]

As far as I'm concerned, barring an admission by someone inside the design/development team that they made a particular change for the heck of it, we will never know. Changes in a new design are not isolated. It's entirely possible to have several changes that--on the surface, even after we have the complete game--seem to be made for no good reason, but were actually rolling fallout from other changes that everyone accepts as needed. It's also possible for the designers to simply make mistakes. (That is, they had reasons that were compelling at the time, but a year after launch don't seem so compelling.)

Yeah, the OP is a bit of back door snark. It's asking for evidence that can't be provided. What's it's really asking for is that people not claim, "OMG, this change X is obviously being done just to change things around," under any pretense that such a claim is anything more than a venting of a gut instinct.

 

[pawsplay]

Tieflings fill the "Guy with a dark past" role. There are lots of literary, both old school and contemporary, of "Something made/born of evil fighting its heritage". This can be dismissed as the "Emo kids playing Drizzt" but there's precedence for it. Heck, the 3.5 books are full of "Heritage" feats, from Fey to Draconic to Planar, even Illithid.

There's also a precedent in essentially every game world but FR for not having a lot of planetouched running around. Even in FR, they're rare.

A half-goblin could be just as emo, and a lot more plausible in Mystara or Greyhawk.

 

[Rechan]

There's also a precedent in essentially every game world but FR for not having a lot of planetouched running around. Even in FR, they're rare.

And because it's a PC race that means that they make up at least 15% of the population?

 

[pawsplay]

And because it's a PC race that means that they make up at least 15% of the population?

Well,

The tiefling's inclusion in the core rules compelled us to imagine what the D&D world would be like with tieflings around in greater numbers.